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News
Briefs: Ralph Nader at PIELC
| Publisher Departs | Services
at Stake| Undercovered #12 | Guard
Celebrates | Principles & Patriotism
| Celebrating Choice
News:
Cultural Revolution -- Torrey's call for pro-business shift
gives citizens the chills.
PLUS: Higher Expectations -- Citizens respond to Mayor Torrey's
annual call for sprawl.
Happening
People: Debra Higbee.
RALPH
NADER AT PIELC
Ralph Nader has been confirmed as a keynote
speaker for Land Air Water's 20th Annual Public Interest Environmental
Law Conference at UO March 7-10. Other confirmed speakers, according
to L.A.W., include Dave Foreman, Dr. Nina Leopold Bradley, John Echohawk,
John & Cristobal Bonifaz, Jamie Pinkham, Gloria Flora, Michael
Frome, Linda Krop, Jamie Pinkham, Eugene Rutagarama.
This year's theme is "Global CPR -- Conservation, Preservation,
Restoration." A preliminary agenda will be posted near the end of January on
the web at www.pielc.uoregon.edu
On-line registration will begin in early February, and registration
fees will be approximately the same as last year: $75 early registration for attorneys,
$20-$50 sliding scale for the general public.
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Slant
-- Congrats to Jan Wilson, David Monk and all the folks associated
with Friends of Eugene and Citizens for Public Accountability for putting on an excellent
Citizens' State of the City Address Jan. 8 at Harris Hall. We are fortunate this
week to be able to find space to reprint Wilson's entire presentation, which offers
an eloquent and hopeful rebuttal to Mayor Torrey's tired vision of Eugene, California
-- oops, make that Oregon. Eugene has not had a truly progressive mayor in recent
history, and the FoE/CPA address reminds us of the kind of leadership we could have,
and should have in the Emerald City.
-- A curious possible confrontation between Phil Barnhart and Bob
Doppelt continues to whirl around out there. Rep. Barnhart, one of our favorite legislators
and civic leaders, is running to represent a newly configured District 11 that grew
out of redistricting. Doppelt, one of our favorite environmental thinkers and a resident
of the McKenzie Valley, is considering a run for the same district. This is a race
between two Democrats that shouldn't happen. Barnhart, who received a 100 percent
rating from the League of Conservation Voters for the last session, is strong in
education, human services, and other areas. We're lucky to have him in Salem. Doppelt
could be a good elected official, but not on this route. Save the money and energy
for a contest that makes sense.
-- After bumbling through an awkward campaign promoting citywide
City Council elections, the Gang of 9 has bagged out and wants the council to do
its dirty work -- refer the question to the voters in November. Apparently, the Gang
didn't notice all the good work done by the Charter Review Committee last winter
in which all sorts of election methods were examined, including citywide elections.
As we recall, no one on the committee advocated for citywide elections.
-- In planning for the second phase of Bus Rapid Transit, the Highway
99 route from downtown Eugene to the Barger Drive area should be the highest priority.
The demographics of the Bethel area indicate a potentially high ridership in this
growing residential area. The other option, a loop up Coburg Road and east to Springfield,
has some merit, but Sacred Heart might never be built in north Springfield, and why
should we make it easier for people to get to pedestrian-unfriendly Gateway Mall?
Likewise, Costco is not a likely destination for bus-bound shoppers. A gallon of
artichoke hearts and 50-roll pack of toilet paper and your shopping spree is over,
baby!
SLANT includes short opinion pieces and rumor-chasing notes compiled
by the EW staff. Heard any good rumors lately? Contact Ted Taylor at 484-0519, editor@eugeneweekly.com
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PUBLISHER DEPARTS
EW Publisher Sonja Snyder has left her administrative
position this week after 19 years with the publication. She will continue to be involved
in the newspaper as a shareholder and member of the board of directors.
The board has decided against filling her position at this time,
says Art Johnson, chair of the board. Instead, an executive committee will oversee
management. Director of Advertising John Herron will become director of business
operations, Editor Ted Taylor will have expanded management responsibilities, and
Contributing Editor Anita Johnson will represent the board on the committee.
Snyder has been publisher for the past nine years and before that
served as editor and advertising manager.
"Sonja has been with EW during a period of important
growth and development of the paper," says Art Johnson. "During the past
decade, the paper has become an important voice in this community. We now have an
audited readership of 78,000 and our advertising revenues have grown steadily, even
while other media have had declines and cutbacks."
Johnson says the board is anticipating the newspaper's continued
growth in revenues and circulation in 2002, and wants EW to become "the
best place to work in Lane County."
EW, known as What's Happening for its first 11 years,
was founded on a shoestring budget by five friends: Lois Wadsworth, Sonja (Ungemach)
Snyder, Bill Snyder, Lucia McKelvey and Liz Lyman. Wadsworth remains on staff as
executive arts editor. McKelvey and Sonja Snyder continue as board members and share
holders.
SERVICES
AT STAKE
Oregon faces an $830 million budget shortfall, and services
on the chopping block could mean a setback for women's health in the state. Gov.
Kitzhaber this week vowed to work with lawmakers to try to mitigate some of the expected
damages to social services. The Oregon Legislature will begin a special session Feb.
15.
Rep. Vicki Walker and former Rep. Kitty Piercy met with the Lane
County Medical Alliance Jan. 8 and said the special session will look at cuts in
domestic violence screening, education, safety net clinics, teen pregnancy prevention,
health insurance for low income working families, and other cuts.
Walker and Piercy spoke about the Oregon Women's' Health and Wellness
Alliance. OWHWA is a voluntary group of individuals, state agency representatives,
lobbyists, community organizers, and elected officials who collaborate on the drafting
and reforming of laws affecting women. Bills introduced through and supported by
this group focus on women's equity in the areas of health, safety and justice.
"It's going to take a lot of this state and this country to
switch to a mentality of looking at taxes as the work of the devil to taxes as community
agreed support for what we're going to pay for," said Piercy who is currently
public affairs director for Planned Parenthood in the region.
Women's health tends to be thought of as reproductive issues, however,
it involves a lot more than that, Piercy said, "All issues are women's health
issues." However, if there were no women in government, there would be no OWHWA.
"It's not that men won't vote the right way," she said, "it's just
that certain issues just won't come up or reach a certain level of significance unless
a woman brings them up. Women's health care is family health care, it's everybody's
health care."
-- Elizabeth Pownall
UNDERCOVERED
#12
¥ Jan. 4: Bowing to international pressure, Pentagon
officials agreed to investigate conflicting accounts of 52 to 107 deaths reported
in the Dec. 29 U.S. air attack on Niazi Qalaye. How could so many people die when
bombs fell on three houses? Among the ruins reporters saw not only burned human flesh,
but also wedding decorations and shreds of elaborately embroidered dresses. Neighbors
said there had been a big wedding. Many guests were buried as the houses collapsed;
others died digging through rubble to rescue them, or running away across the fields.
Local people accused Pacha Khan Zadran, an anti-Taliban commander, of giving the
Americans false intelligence that led to the attack (Guardian).
¥ Jan. 6-13: Bombing continued in eastern Afghanistan. President
Bush said that al Qaida and the Taliban would "continue to learn the terrible
lesson that says don't mess with America" (BBC) As Prime Minister Karzai tried
to unify tribal chiefs behind the interim Afghan government, Pashtun leaders increasingly
criticized him for backing the U.S. bombing (IWPR).
¥ Jan 12: U.S. troops searched Tora Bora caves with hungry,
barefoot Afghan fighters whose commanders had pocketed U.S. money to feed the troops
and buy them cold-weather gear (Pakistan Frontier Post).
¥ Jan. 13: U.S. special forces looked in the caves for human
fingers and organ tissue, to be sent to U.S. labs in refrigerated bags. FBI scientists
will try to match samples with DNA collected from bin Laden's family. When giant
"daisycutter" bombs fell, people in the caves were incinerated and torn
apart by pressure waves. Nevertheless, modern DNA methods allow tissues mixed by
explosions to be separated, so that bin Laden's DNA may still be isolated (Observer).
¥ Jan. 15: The mountain hamlets of Zhawar are tiny and remote.
U.S. bombers spent a tenth day bombing al-Qaida training camps in this region. "[Shudiaki]
village is completely flattened," said Noorz Ali, driving down the mountain
in a truck with four baby goats. "'My house was destroyed and my neighbors were
killed... The dead remain in the village. Everybody else has left." "Where
can we go?" asked Khalil Jan, a shepherd. "There is no reason for this.
The camps are empty, but still the Americans are dropping their bombs" (Guardian).
-- Kate Rogers Gessert
GUARD CELEBRATES
Next month, the Baker family gets to celebrate 75 years
of owning Eugene's daily newspaper, The Register-Guard. Last week the R-G
announced layoffs of up to 15 jobs, including as many as three in the newsroom.
"Call me naïve or extremely optimistic, but since the
company hasn't ever done layoffs like this I thought they would try to avoid them,
especially around this date of what should be a happy time for the company,"
says Suzi Prozanski, president of the Eugene Newspaper Guild.
A better way to celebrate, she says, would be signing a fair contract
with the union, which has an anniversary of its own coming up on Jan. 25 -- 1,000
days without a contract.
Managers told employees last week the company plans to cut $700,000
out of the newspaper's total budget, including $100,000 from advertising and $150,000
from the newsroom. Prozanski says she's heard the company is considering printing
narrower pages such as The Oregonian, a move estimated to save $300,000.
Already the paper has cut expenses through reduced total pages
in the paper and less use of color. It has lost the expense of 20 jobs to attrition;
after the new round of layoffs, Prozanski says the total company staff will be down
10 percent, to 420.
Advertising revenues have plummeted at newspapers around the state
and the country. The R-G doesn't disclose its finances, but a Jan. 11 news
report quoted Publisher Tony Baker asserting that classified sales were down sharply
in employment, real estate and automotive categories; display advertising is sluggish;
and help wanted ads dropped 28 percent between 2000 and 2001.
Prozanski says many guild members would be happy to accept reduced
hours in order to save others' jobs.
"We just hope the company will consider this offer,"
she says. "It's one way to help maintain the level of service to our readers
and advertisers."
Prozanski says the company doesn't say it's losing money, just
that it isn't making enough of a profit. -- OI
PRINCIPLES
& PATRIOTISM
Formed as a community response to the events of Sept. 11,
the Justice Not War Coalition fosters peaceful alternatives to war. The coalition
and the UO Cultural Forum will show a videotape of a one-hour documentary film called
The Good War and Those Who Refused to Fight It at 7 pm on Jan. 18 in 180 PLC
on UO campus. Conscientious objectors (COs) from all wars will be welcomed at 6:45
pm, and at 8 pm local COs will participate in a panel discussion. The film will also
air on Oregon Public Broadcasting (OPB) at 11 pm Thursday, Jan. 17
The film focuses on a group of COs who refused to fight in World
War II. Sent to a national system of work camps paid for by churches, some were college
students philosophically unwilling to kill, while others were religious pacifists
or simply ordinary people of no particular belief who opposed war and killing on
ethical grounds.
World War II was a very popular war, and opposition to it was both
rare and unpopular. Nevertheless, some 40,000 men refused to serve. Compared to the
170,000 COs recognized and given a measure of popular support during the Vietnam
War era, the few who stood for non-violence during WWII were acting against the grain
of public sentiment.
To prove their patriotism but still hold their principles, many
COs served as unarmed medics in the Army. War resistors went to jail, where they
used hunger strikes to integrate the federal prison system. Other COs performed risky
domestic services such as fire jumping, volunteering for medical experiments and
working in "insane asylums," where they found patients living in horrendous
conditions.
After the war, COs led a reform movement that resulted in more
humane institutions for the mentally ill. They helped build the civil rights movement.
They helped provide relief to European and Asian countries after the war. They created
a legacy of peaceful non-violence.
-- LW
CELEBRATING
CHOICE
Across the state of Oregon, the 29th anniversary of Roe
v. Wade will be commemorated with candlelight celebrations Tuesday, Jan. 22. In Eugene,
the event will begin at 6 pm at the First Congregational Church fellowship hall at
24th and Harris.
Supporters of reproductive freedom will gather to reflect on and
celebrate the 1973 ruling that extended the right to privacy to a woman's decision
to have a safe, legal abortion.
The celebration, organized by the Pro-Choice Coalition of Oregon,
will include the lighting of 29 candles to commemorate 29 years of legalized abortion.
For more information, call Planned Parenthood at 342-6042.
Back to Top
Cultural
Revolution
Torrey's call for pro-business
shift gives citizens the chills.
By Alan
Pittman
Eugene Mayor Jim Torrey called for a "cultural shift"
in Eugene to "overcome our reputation as a community that's not open for business."
In his State of the City Address Jan. 9, Torrey called for allowing
more urban sprawl to accommodate commercial and industrial development, relaxing
city health, environmental and growth management regulations and surveying businesses
to ask what else the city could do for them.
Torrey said the city must help businesses create jobs. In trying
to protect the environment, manage growth and reduce traffic congestion in the past
four years, "We lost track of the importance of balancing these quality of life
issues with the importance of earning a living."
Mary O'Brien, an environmentalist with Citizens for Public Accountability
(CPA), described Torrey's call for a "cultural shift" as "chilling."
"Torrey sees Eugene's human culture as standing in the way
of business with a capital B," O'Brien said. "It's get the people out of
the way. Get Eugeneans out of the way."
A "Citizens' State of the City Address" presented by
CPA and Friends of Eugene (FOE) offered an alternative vision for the city as "a
community of citizens who take care of each other, our natural resources and our
long-term future." The speech called for supporting downtown redevelopment and
small businesses while preserving the environment and controlling urban sprawl.
"It was a very positive message," said City Councilor
Bonny Bettman of the citizens' address.
"It was wonderful," said Councilor David Kelly.
Bettman disputes Torrey's claim that the city is not open for business.
"It has never been closed to business," Bettman says. "It has never
slowed down."
Indeed, in the 1990s Eugene's population grew 22 percent. Springfield
is often cited by Torrey and other sprawl advocates as Eugene's more business-friendly
rival. But Springfield trailed Eugene with only 18 percent growth during the decade.
The facts also don't support claims that Eugene has lost jobs by
not being sufficiently pro business. Per capita income is a third higher in Eugene
than in Springfield, where children live in poverty at a rate almost twice that of
Eugene, according to the latest (1990) census data. Forty-five percent of Springfield
residents actually work in Eugene, according to the census.
Eugene has given tax breaks and subsidies to businesses that far
eclipse any handouts in Springfield ($45 million to Hynix alone). "We still
have the same economic development policies we've been employing for the past three
decades and it's a dead end," Bettman says.
City surveys indicate that the majority of Eugeneans support the
CPA/FoE vision for Eugene over the mayor's. Citizens cited city growth problems as
the most important problem facing Eugene in a city survey two months ago. Citizens
rated the size of the city as the thing they like most about living in Eugene. Only
6 percent thought, like the mayor, that the city is growing too slowly.
Almost everybody supports sustainable economic development policies
that include a healthy quality of life and environment, Bettman says, but "somehow,
that priority never seems to come out on top with our existing power structure."
Torrey has strong backing from the pro-sprawl Eugene Chamber of
Commerce. The Chamber awarded Torrey its annual "First Citizen" award after
the mayor's speech. But the Chamber has shown itself to be dramatically out of touch
with the community on growth and environmental issues. In the city's 1996 Growth
Management Study, for example, citizens gave average ratings of 70 or more out of
100 for increasing regulations to preserve water quality and natural habitats. The
Chamber gave those actions a zero rating.
"You don't have to do a survey" to know what big business
wants Eugene to do for it, O'Brien said. They want maximum tax breaks and minimum
regulation, she said. "Clear everything for the bottom line."
O'Brien said Eugene isn't bad for business but may be bad for some
businesses that aren't good corporate citizens -- "businesses that are not accountable,
businesses that operate primarily through the Gang of 9, businesses that want to
pit one community against another."
Jan Spencer of CPA said Eugene can be good for the environment
and good for business at the same time. "There's business to be made, money
to be made, by doing the right thing."
Bettman said a healthy environment and quality of life helps attract
high quality jobs to Eugene. "That is the biggest incentive to most small businesses
and medium-size businesses."
Eugene should not "prostrate before multinational corporations
who have no interest in a community other than it provides low cost water or subsidies,"
O'Brien said.
A diversity of smaller local businesses offer a far more stable
economic base than attracting big, unstable multinational corporations with tax breaks,
Spencer said. "Complex ecosystems are more durable," he said.
"Small business is the life blood of this community's economic
health," Kelly agreed.
O'Brien said it's wrong for Torrey to use the global economic downturn
as a means of furthering his local conservative agenda. "It's using a global
problem to hammer a community."
Eugene doesn't need to change its culture to match the pro-sprawl,
anti-environmental slant of the mayor, O'Brien said. "Another alternative is
to change mayors."
Higher Expectations
Presented by Jan Wilson Jan. 11 on behalf of Citizens
for Public Accountability and Friends of Eugene.
If there is one word to describe Eugene today, it's "opportunity."
At the beginning of 2002, we have unprecedented opportunities to build upon the unique
social and natural advantages of our community with vibrant neighborhoods, a revitalized
downtown, a sustainable economy, abundant natural and public areas, representative
political leadership, and true commitment to and involvement of our youth.
Over the past few years, our city has put into place the structures
required to implement more sustainable and neighborhood-friendly development. The
city's recently approved transportation plan and the updated land use code will require
much of our development to be built in mixed-use "nodes." Nodes include
a mix of housing types and neighborhood shops and cafés. This means more affordable
housing, new ways to build communities, living-wage employment, neighborhood-oriented
businesses, working and shopping within walking distance of one's home, and opportunities
for neighbors to interact with each other. With current planning processes in motion,
Eugene is now on the verge of making mixed-use nodal development a reality in many
areas of the city.
The city has also made a significant commitment to downtown revitalization, yet
we have opportunities to do much more in this area. Just a few years ago, most citizens
endorsed the "recycle Eugene" option in the city's growth management survey.
Clearly, Eugene citizens recognize that continuing to finance infrastructure developments
at the edge of the urban growth boundary while abandoning existing investments in
the urban core is fiscally irresponsible, destructive of our sense of community,
and unsustainable. Current economic conditions force us to spend our limited public
resources even more judiciously. Wisely, our city leadership has focused much of
its public building in the downtown area. The new library and the federal building
will go a long way toward maintaining economic vitality by keeping employees downtown
and by providing daytime customers for the numerous small businesses that rely on
those employees.
But we have the opportunity to do much more. We need to recommit
to the sustainable economy that makes Eugene unique. Our city government needs to
find ways to support public-minded private developers who creatively take on the
challenges of downtown redevelopment, with a commitment to community at the forefront.
We need to find ways to attract and keep our professional services (including doctors,
lawyers, architects, and accountants), government agencies, arts and cultural centers,
non-profit organizations, and small businesses in our city's core.
Sometimes it's just a matter of using existing city government
in a novel way. Recently, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality awarded
a $28,000 solid waste grant to BRING Recycling for a project that will educate contractors
and architects about reusing building materials and will help BRING collect deconstruction
materials.
We need to find more ways to help out businesses that are already
here in Eugene, rather than engaging in the well-known "race to the bottom"
that is required to attract out-of-state and multinational corporations and equipment-intensive,
chemical-intensive industries. According to the Small Business Administration, small
businesses account for 99 percent of America's private employers, and they employ
53 percent of the private work force. The diversity of small businesses insulates
our city from a downturn of any one sector, such as we saw this past year in electronics
technology businesses. We need to recognize that our city's long-term economic viability
depends on the cumulative effects of numerous and diverse small employers, not on
the minimum-wage, low-skilled, part-time jobs preferred by the big box national chain
stores at the edge of Eugene's urban growth boundary.
The Lane Venture Forum provides a good example of how to help valuable
small businesses. Through this program, business owners receive assistance creating
and refining their business plans. The program then attempts to match the plan with
local venture capitalists. On the other hand, the mayor's so-called "plan"
to give sprawl developers free rein and taxpayer subsidies to abandon the urban core
and pave over our precious natural areas is a failure -- we've tried that; every
other city across America has tried it; and it hasn't worked anywhere yet.
With a number of key vacant parcels in the city's core, we have
major opportunities for creative planning for public spaces and new businesses downtown.
With the University of Oregon in our midst, we have ample opportunities for research
and professional businesses. We must challenge our leadership, our developers, and
ourselves to take advantage of these positive opportunities rather than engaging
in a race with neighboring cities to see who can degrade and bankrupt themselves
faster.
Our abundant but ever-shrinking unique natural areas continue to provide us,
as well as out-of-town visitors, with recreational and spiritual opportunities. Eugene
citizens have always considered the value of bike paths, city parks, and rural areas
as part of our "quality of life dividend." We have long recognized that
many Eugeneans were drawn here and choose to stay here, in large part, because of
the close proximity of forests, mountains, rivers, and wetlands. In the past year,
the city has purchased some pieces of these precious natural areas, such as the one
in the south hills, which was brought into public ownership by virtue of the parks
and open space bond measure that citizens overwhelmingly supported.
The City Council has adopted a resolution pledging proactive efforts
to not only preserve but also recover salmon populations in our rivers. We have many
opportunities to implement this resolution by protecting in-stream and riparian areas,
wetlands, and other significant habitats in the watershed, by addressing nonpoint
pollution discharges (including stormwater runoff), and by eliminating activities
such as pesticide usage that degrade our water quality.
The natural resources inventory, now underway, with significant
citizen involvement, also provides an opportunity to protect many, if not all, of
the remaining riparian areas and wildlife habitats within the city. All across our
city, neighbors are identifying places that need to be brought into public ownership
or otherwise protected. We have a multitude of opportunities to preserve these natural
areas that make Eugene one-of-a-kind.
None of these opportunities will be realized, however, if citizens are denied
the opportunity to participate in formulating and implementing the visions. Eugene
needs to reconfirm its commitment to meaningful public participation. Our public
"battles" are, in fact, proof that Eugene's citizens feel the healthy need
to make their voices heard. It's part of what makes Eugene vibrant, part of what
makes Eugene Eugene. Apathy results when citizens feel insignificant and unheard.
Our community would be less contentious without debate, but unhealthier. Even seemingly
rancorous debates, like the one that surrounded PeaceHealth's expansion plans this
summer, often bring together citizens of diverse backgrounds and skills to work on
crafting innovative solutions to a community problem.
Our elected leaders must recognize the value of citizen input and
look for ways to ensure consideration of the innovative, out-of-the-box ideas generated
by public advisory committees. We can and should do better, however, at facilitating
and utilizing the extraordinary commitments, skills, and knowledge of Eugene's citizens
in citywide planning efforts, such as those associated with the downtown redevelopment
vision, the federal building and riverfront design, and the charter review process.
Citizens have repeatedly indicated that they prefer a natural riparian area near
the river at the new federal courthouse site and something less daunting than a four-
or six-lane highway separating the public building from the downtown. The mayor calls
for surveys of developers to inform planning -- we would go much further. All plans
should be the product of input from city staff, local businesses, neighborhood leaders,
and a representative sample of civic-minded citizens.
Financial and political accessibility to community leadership and governance
are as essential to a properly functioning city as public comment opportunities.
The combination of retaining local ward elections and instituting campaign finance
reform will go far toward the goal of making sure that average citizens of public
commitment and yet modest means can afford to run for city government positions.
We in Eugene must hold sacred the ability of all qualified citizens to participate
in leadership. No city should be run by a moneyed gang.
Finally, as with every generation in every city, we have the ultimate
opportunity provided by the promise of our community's youth. We must not squander
this opportunity. These young people are Eugene's future, and we have the obligation
to provide them with tools they need to realize their full potential.
To a large extent, this opportunity is bound up with the others.
On Wednesday, the mayor called on taxpayers and governments to allocate more money
to adequately fund our schools. Yet last fall, taxpayers were asked to approve building
an $84 million freeway to make it easier for people to live out in the Bethel School
District. Bethel is now having to come up with more bond money to build new schools,
while Eugene's 4J district continues to lose students and money and is now having
to close schools. Eugeneans in both school districts are incurring the costs of subsidizing
sprawl: Bethel area citizens have to pay in higher school taxes, and 4J citizens
have to pay in loss of school services. This is absolutely ludicrous! If we keep
wasting money on roads to subsidize sprawling development, we'll have that much less
to spend on schools. If we continue to value cars over neighborhoods, we'll destroy
our children's connection to their community. If we continue to value consumer goods
and shopping malls over open space and parklands, we'll destroy our children's connection
to the natural world.
And if we shut our youth out of the political process, we'll have
only ourselves to blame for their cynicism. If we act in these short-sighted ways,
we cannot condemn their withdrawal from public problem-solving. We need to challenge
ourselves to support unique programs for our young people, programs like the Churchill
Community Garden at the Rachel Carson Center, an alternative high school that uses
experiential learning and a curriculum based on watersheds to teach students not
only traditional skills of scientific study and language arts but also stewardship
and community involvement. We need to find more ways for our youth to participate
in community decisions, expanding on the example of the student representatives to
Eugene's school board. Our young people are not "slackers" -- they have
the energy and abilities to help research alternatives, participate on committees,
and advocate for community improvements.
As 2002 begins, Eugene's citizens find the state of the city to be ripe with
opportunity. In the coming year, we must adopt higher levels of expectations and
challenge ourselves to use our opportunities for realizing our vision of a unique
Eugene -- a community of citizens who take care of each other, our natural resources,
and our long-term future.
Back to Top
 
Debra Higbee
"I became an environmentalist when my kids were born,"
says mother-of-two Debra Higbee. "I was concerned about the world they would
live in." A Salt Lake City native living in Santa Cruz in the mid-'80s, Higbee
heard workers cutting trees next to her apartment.
"I was so angry, I started calling and found the person responsible,"
she says. "I used all my diplomatic skills -- the chain saws stopped."
When the family moved to Redmond, Wash., Higbee joined the Sierra Club and got involved
in politics: "I worked on the mayor's campaign -- she put me on a growth management
committee." Since moving to Oregon in the early '90s, she has been a mainstay
of the Sierra Club's local Many Rivers Group, where she serves as political chair
and editor of the group's newsletter, The Runoff. Higbee is currently writing
her thesis for an interdisciplinary master's degree in ecological spirituality at
UO. "Debra is very spiritually focused," observes Eugene City Councilor
David Kelly. "She has a central sense of what is sacred in the environment and
in humanity -- her political work stems from that."
-- Photo by Paul Neevel
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